The past several years have seen an explosive growth of the World Wide Web ("the Web"). The Web is built around a network of "server" computers, which exchange requests and data with each other using the hypertext transfer protocol ("http"). A human designer designs the layout of a Web page, which is then specified using HTML ("Hypertext Markup Language"). Several versions of HTML are currently in existence. Examples include HTML versions 2.0 and 3.0, as specified by the WWW Consortium of MIT. Netscape Communications Corp. has specified additional HTML features that extend the HTML language, including forms and tables.
A user views a Web page using one of a number of commercially available "browser" programs. The browser submits an appropriate http request to establish a communications link with a Web server of the network. A typical http request references a Web page by its unique Uniform Resource Locator ("URL"). A URL identifies the Web server hosting that Web page, so that an http request for access to the Web page can be routed to the appropriate Web server for handling. Web pages can also be linked graphically to each other.
The HTML to describe a Web page is often created by hand by a human being. If the design of the page changes, the corresponding HTML must be rewritten, which is an exacting process. Although several conventional HTML editors exist, these editors only allow the user to specify certain elements of a page and still require the user to enter HTML code. Conventional HTML editors allow the user to specify the page content and general layout, but do not provide the user with "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) capability. Thus, the pages generated by conventional HTML editors look different when viewed by different browsers.
A Web "site" consists of a "homepage" and several other related pages. Each page has corresponding HTML that describes the appearance and function of the page. For example, the HTML for the homepage usually contains links to one or more of the other pages and the other pages often contain respective links back to the homepage. When the user clicks on a link of the displayed homepage, the browser requests and displays the linked-to page. Each link must be designed and coded into the HTML for the page. Thus, for example, when a human designer decides to remove a link between the homepage and another page, the HTML for the homepage must be changed to reflect the removed link. This process is exacting and requires that the user manually change the link. Moreover, if the linked-to page has another link back to the homepage, that link may also need to be changed.
It is usually desirable to have a consistent style for all pages of a site. When the user hand codes the HTML for each page of a site, it is difficult for the user to remember to use a consistent style. In addition, if the user decides to change the style of a site, each page must be changed individually.